December 19
World War II History
Quote:1941 - Adolf Hitler informed General Franz Halder that there would be no retreating from the Russian front near Moscow. Hitler had assumed the position of commander in chief of the German army the previous day.
haydi l 2arar wil tefkeer l jnouni li khalla Hitler yekhsar l 7areb w lawleha kenet germany 7akamet l denya
Birthdays
William Parry 1790
Minnie Fiske 1865
Fritz Reiner 1888
Ralph Richardson 1902
Leonid Brezhnev (Russia) 1906
Jean Genet 1910
Edith Piaf 1915
David Susskind 1920
"Little" Jimmy Dickens 1920
Doug Harvey 1924
Galt MacDermot 1928
Howard Sackler 1929
Cicely Tyson 1933
Al Kaline 1934
Phil Ochs 1940
Maurice White (Earth, Wind & Fire) 1941
Tim Reid 1944
Alvin Lee 1944
Charlie Ryan 1944
Richard Leakey 1944
Zal Yanovsky (Lovin' Spoonful) 1944
Elaine Joyce 1945
John McEuen (The Nitty Gritty Dirt Band, Ten Years After) 1945
Stan Smith 1946
Robert Urich 1946
Claudia Kolb 1949
Jeff Davis 1952
Janie Fricke 1952
Billy Brigg 1957
Kevin McHale 1957
Mike Lookinland 1960
Reggie White 1961
Jennifer Beals 1963
Robert MacNaughton 1966
Kevin Shepard (Tonic) 1968
Warren Sapp 1972
Alyssa Milano 1972
Marlo Sokoloff 1980
Jake Gyllenhall 1980
Today in History!
1154 - Henry II became King of England.
1562 - The Battle of Dreux was fought between the Huguenots and the Catholics, beginning the French Wars of Religion.
1732 - Benjamin Franklin began publishing "Poor Richard's Almanac."
1776 - Thomas Paine published his first "American Crisis" essay.
1777 - General George Washington led his army of about 11,000 men to Valley Forge, PA, to camp for the winter.
1842 - Hawaii's independence was recognized by the U.S.
1843 - Charles Dickens' "A Christmas Carol" was first published in England.
1871 - Corrugated paper was patented by Albert L. Jones.
1887 - Jake Kilrain and Jim Smith fought in a bare knuckles fight which lasted 106 rounds and 2 hours and 30 minutes. The fight was ruled a draw and was halted due to darkness.
1903 - The Williamsburg Bridge opened in New York City. It opened as the largest suspension bridge on Earth and remained the largest until 1924. It was also the first major suspension bridge to use steel towers to support the main cable.
1907 - A coalmine explosion in Jacobs Creek, PA, killed 239 workers.
1917 - The first games of the new National Hockey League (NHL) were played. Five teams made up the league: Toronto Arenas, Ottawa Senators, Quebec Bulldogs, the Montreal Canadiens and the Montreal Wanderers.
1918 - Robert Ripley began his "Believe It or Not" column in "The New York Globe".
1932 - The British Broadcasting Corp. began transmitting overseas with its "Empire Service" to Australia.
1957 - Meredith Wilson’s "The Music Man" opened at the Majestic Theatre in New York City. It ran for 1,375 shows.
1957 - Air service between London and Moscow was inaugurated.
1959 - Penn State’s Nittany Lions beat Alabama, 7-0, in the first Liberty Bowl football game.
1959 - Walter Williams died in Houston, TX, at the age of 117. He was said to be the last surviving veteran of the U.S. Civil War.
1961 - "Judgment At Nuremberg" opened in New York City.
1972 - Apollo 17 splashed down in the Pacific, ending the Apollo program of manned lunar landings.
1973 - Johnny Carson started a fake toilet-paper scare on the "Tonight Show."
1978 - Indira Gandhi was expelled from the Lok Sabha for contempt and imprisoned.
1979 - ESPN televised its first NHL game. The teams were the Washington Capitals and the Hartford Whales.
1984 - Wayne Gretsky, 23, of the Edmonton Oilers, became only the 18th player in the National Hockey League (NHL) to score more than 1,000 points.
1984 - Ted Hughes was appointed England's poet laureate.
1984 - Britain and China signed an accord returning Hong Kong to Chinese sovereignty on July 1, 1997.
1985 - Jan Stenerud announced his retirement from the NFL. The football kicker held the record for the most career field goals with 373.
1985 - ABC Sports announced that it was severing ties with Howard Cosell and released ‘The Mouth’ from all TV commitments. Cosell continued on ABC Radio for another five years.
1986 - The Soviet Union announced it had freed dissident Andrei Sakharov from internal exile, and pardoned his wife, Yelena Bonner.
1989 - U.S. troops invaded Panama to overthrow the regime of General Noriega.
1990 - Bo Jackson (Los Angeles Raiders) became the first athlete to be chosen for All Star Games in two sports.
1996 - The school board of Oakland, CA, voted to recognize Black English, also known as "ebonics." The board later reversed its stance.
1997 - "Titanic" opened in American movie theaters.
1998 - U.S. President Bill Clinton was impeached on two charges of perjury and obstruction of justice by the U.S. House of Representatives.
1998 - A four-day bombing of Iraq by British and American forces ended.
2000 - The U.N. Security Council voted to impose sanctions on Afghanistan's Taliban rulers unless they closed all terrorist training camps and surrender U.S. embassy bombing suspect Osama bin Laden.
2003 - Images for the new design for the Freedom Tower at the World Trade Center site were released. The building slopes into a spire that reaches 1,776 feet.
